Camden Middle School sixth grader Claire Barber recently had the chance to play the game she loves on an internationally-recognized stage. Barber, a member of the Utica Junior Comets 12u Girls Ice Hockey team, participated with her teammates in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s 2024 Global Girls Game held from February 16th to February 18th.
The Global Girls Game is a worldwide event that consists of a series of almost 40 hockey games for women and girls around the world. Start times were staggered so that effectively, there is a game being played as part of the event at any time throughout the three day period. During each game, a team is designated as either “Team Blue” or “Team White”, and an aggregate score across all games is kept.
In honor of Utica hosting the IIHF Women’s World Championship this April, the Jr. Comets organization had the chance to hold a home game as USA Hockey’s official representative in the global series. The game was also featured as part of USA Hockey’s own “Global Girls Game” series held across the country.
In the game, Utica defeated the Binghamton Blizzard 10-1. Utica represented “Team White”, while the Blizzard were part of “Team Blue” for the global series. Just over 30 players participated in the game, with Claire being one of them. The next game was played across the world in Kazakhstan.
Team Blue won the worldwide series by a final score of 175 to 167.
As part of the build-up to the World Championships, Claire recently had the chance to meet Olympic Gold medalist Megan Keller from the US National Team.
